QUERY FOR DECEMBER

• Do we each take an active part in the life of our Meeting?

• How do we recognize the varied skills and spiritual gifts of our members and attenders?

• How do we nurture their use and growth?

• In what ways are we bringing together members and attenders, young and old, in love and community?

Michigan Friends Center: Living Lightly: a gathering to inspire and celebrate delighted “enoughness”.

Cost: $35.00 to register before Nov. 15; $50.00 at the door. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Dean Emeritus Jim Crowfoot of U of M’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment will speak on Changing joyously to Achieve Sustainability: Using Spirit, Experience, and Science-based Information. Small focus groups will take up various sustainability issues and identify resources to meet the challenges. The day will also include time for personal and group reflection, a simple, delicious lunch featuring local produce, and light, lively music.

QUERY FOR NOVEMBER

• Do we regard our time, talents, energy, money, material possessions and other resources as gifts from God to be held in trust and shared according to the light we are given?
• How do we express this conviction?
• What are we doing as individuals and as a Meeting to use and thereby perfect our gifts?
• How do we encourage others to use theirs?

QUERY FOR JUNE

• Are our Meetings for Business held in the spirit of a Meeting for Worship in which we seek divine guidance for our actions in love and mutual forbearance?
• How well do our Meetings for Business lead to a corporate search for and revelation of God's truth?
  
• As difficult problems arise, are we careful to meet them in a spirit of love and humility with minds open for creative solutions?
  
• Do we avoid pressure of time, neither unnecessarily prolonging or unduly curtailing full discussion?
  
• Do we recognize that the search for unity may require us to accept with good grace a decision of the Meeting with which we are not entirely in agreement?
  
• Are younger Friends, new members, and attenders given appropriate responsibility in the Meeting?

QUERY FOR APRIL

• Do we center our lives in the awareness of the presence of God so that all things take their rightful place?
• Do we keep our lives uncluttered with things and activities and avoid commitments beyond our strength and light?
• Is the life of the Meeting so ordered that it helps us simplify our personal lives?
• Do we order our individual lives so as to nourish our spiritual growth?

QUERY FOR MARCH

• Do we live the virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all war?
• Do we refrain from taking part in war as inconsistent with the spirit of Christ?
• What are we doing to remove the causes of war and to bring about the conditions of Peace?
• Where there are hatred, division and strife, how are we instruments of reconciliation and love?
• As we work for peace in the world, are we nourished by peace within ourselves?

Speak For Peace Tour

Join us February 26 at 7:30 Trinity United Methodist Church, 1100 Lake Drive SE Grand Rapids 49506 as Raed Jarrar, an Iraqui Political, and Patricia McCann, a Veteran of the Iraq war, tell stories of war that we seldom through mainstream media and ways that we can bring an end to the suffering. Only through a better understanding of the experiences of both U.S. troops and Iraqi people will we see the possibilities of peace.

This event is sponsored by the Institute for Global Education, the Grand Rapids Community of Peace with Justice, and the Grand Rapids Friends Meeting. Discussion will follow. Contact: IGE, 454-1642 or Betty Ford, 942-4317

QUERY FOR FEBRUARY

• How do we prepare our hearts and minds for worship?
• Do we meet in expectant waiting for the prompting of the Divine Spirit?
• Is there a living silence in which we are drawn together by the power of God in our midst?
• Is this inspiration carried over into our daily living?